Red Sox Quote of the Day, vol. 6 (Please Dice-K, Please! Edition)

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This is from a nice tribute to Red Sox manager Tito Francona from a former player, Doug Glanville, in a New York Times op-ed piece. The nice guy may not finish first this year but he's certainly turned things around at Fenway ... and it's nice to see the Sox finally achieve success this way, as opposed to some of the other options out there. "It is rare to find a “players’ manager” who could also outmanage the best tacticians of the game. He could and did, by sweeping Tony LaRussa and the Cardinals in the 2004 World Series. LaRussa is renowned for his managerial prowess and cutting-edge techniques, but Francona was a step ahead of him. He had figured out a way to combine chalkboard expertise with his innate feel for people."

Red Sox Quote of the Day, vol. 5 (not panicking yet edition)

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"Somebody was going to be down, 2-1," said Mark Kotsay, who had two of the Sox' seven hits. "This team has got a lot of character. I don't think anybody in here is in a panic mode or worried. We're at home. We'll come out tomorrow and play hard and hopefully tie this back up." -- as quoted by Amalie Benjamin in today's Globe. Good attitude, dude. Now make it so.

Red Sox quote of the day vol. 4 (going back to Boston edition)

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"Like I said from the beginning, it doesn't matter to me who's the No. 1 starter and who's the No. 5 starter,’’ Lester said Sunday in anticipation of his Game 3 start. "We all have equal importance to this team when it comes to winning. I just try to go out and execute pitches. Hopefully I can go deep in the game and give the bullpen a rest and give it to [Jonathan Papelbon], and anytime you get to Pap with the lead, we're doing pretty good.’’ -- That's pitcher Jon Lester, quoted by the Boston Globe's Tony Massarotti. Boy will we all be glad to see Lester on the mound, as well as the friendly green of Fenway. I haven't entirely forgotten about books, though -- in fact my recent reading and my Red Sox in the playoffs obsession merged for awhile there as I read Dennis Lehane's new novel, "The Given Day." It's historical and it's epic and Babe Ruth shows up a couple times, in his last year with the Sox (the book is set in 1918-1919 -- I wonder what it says about us as a society that the trade of the Babe to the Yankees is far better known to New England schoolchildren than the Boston police strike which is the climax to the book?